Vittorio Christopher Cascella
Vittorio Christopher Cascella was a scientist, politician and ambassador in Terralibero . He was a major player in the world scene in the mid-21st Century. Cascella's actions were influential in the start and endings of several wars, being the inventor of most of the technology that gave Terralibero advantages over its enemies. Early Life Cascella grew up during the Civil War in America. He was born in the state of Minnesota in the 1990s, and was present at the very event that started the Protest Wars themselves: a baseball game at Target Field where a pre-game injury caused the home team to lose. One thing led to another, and eventually a group of intoxicated fans attacked a police unit in downtown Minneapolis. As a small fight broke out, additional police were called in. Soon the city had a riot on their hands. The riot police used untested crowd control measures to keep people in line, which angered even more people. Vittorio and his family fled the city, barely escaping the huge crowds of rioters and the police barricade. Unbeknowest to Cascella at the time, Susan Armstrong, future President of Terralibero was also present at this event. In the following years, the Cascellas struggled to avoid the violence of the protests as best they could, moving out of the MSP metro and to northern Minnesota, where Cascella attended school. The New Nations After Cascella and his family learned of a reorganization of American government in the South, under the flag of Terralibero, Vittorio moved back to Minneapolis. His parents remained in the safety of the north, however. While living in Minneapolis in the 2020s, Cascella worked for the Terraliberan government as a researcher. He proved to be very capable and eventually reached the top levels of a military technology firm. In 2025 the newly elected President of Terralibero, Hernando Gomez, formaly founded Vail Advanced Research and Technology. It was based in an officially unaligned city state, allowing to company to get tax breaks and be officially not involved with Terraliberan authorities. The coorporation was headed by its CEO Anderson, but Vittorio Cascella was requested to move to Vail and help with design and manufacturing. He accepted, and went on to invent most of the technology it created for the country. Cascella's first project assigned to him was the Powered Infantry, a special operations division of the Terraliberan Army that wore exoskeletal armor composed of newly invented carbon nanotubes. The armor was an enormous success, and it was distributed to the trained soldiers in under three months. President Gomez used the Powered Infantry as a show of force to the Socialist Council during his devestating invasion of the eastern nation. The New York dome was still under construction when the army attacked, burning the city to the ground. Many famous landmarks were destroyed in this battle, such as the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. Eventually support for the invasion faded, and President Gomez resigned for fear of the citizens enacting their Constitutional rights to depose an oppressive government. During this time of relative peace, Cascella focused on space travel technology. The Terraliberan Space Agnecy (TSA) hired Vail to create several new types of spacecraft and space weapons. Operation Preserver, the Haven Islands, and the Newbury program began during this time. Also, quantum physics researchers aquired when VART merged with Walt & Company helped Cascella create a wormhole. It was used mainly for research purposes, but it allowed a mysterious space intelligence calling itself (the?) Milsair to contact Cascella. He found that the wormhole could be used to visit far away locations and see almost anywhere in the world. However, the unusual properties of the Socialist Council's domes blocked them from Vail's vision. The slime mold apocalypse of 2035 halted technological development exept for military technology, as Vail struggled to create enough weapons to combat the threat. Several cities were devastated by the infection, losing over half their population to the debilitating disease. The people who weren't killed outright by the fungal infection became rabid and aggressive, biting and attacking anyone they saw. This led to a terrifying "zombie apocalypse" craze throughout much of the world. Cascella kept Vail safe by building walls and not letting anyone in or out to the city state. VART and Vittorio Cascella's power greatly increased during this time as they grabbed more and more government power in the name of national security. Cascella created a second generation Powered Infantry to kill slime mold "zombies" and destroy slime mold covered buildings. The armor covered the entire body, allowing the soldiers to wade through swaths of the infected and not be killed by the disease. They were also equiped with high yield antimatter weapons that could take down structures and dozens of people in a single shot. This generation was too bulky to do anything but fight slime mold, so they were retired after the war. In the end it was Russia, not Terralibero, that stopped in zombie apocalypse. The few living Russian scientists got their genetic weapon to an ICBM facility and launched the missiles all over the world, except in Africa and South America. There the disease remained a problem. The Socialist Council was safe from the disease because of their massive underground facilities, but Terralibero took almost a decade to rebuild what was lost in the Slime Mold War. The Chinese took advantage of Terralibero's weakness by invading the country from the west coast in 2036. Even the Powered Infantry could not stop the invasion; they were spread too thin after the Slime Mold War. The Chinese homeland was devestated by the fungus, and they needed new land. They reached Vail in a few months, destroying everything in their path. Vittorio Cascella